Mordheim – The City of the Damned: A Damned Good Time.

Mordheim – The City of the Damned, based on the tabletop role-playing game of the same name, is hard. Incredibly hard, punishing even, and at times you will definitely feel like the game is being unfair.

In Mordheim, you control a small warband that slowly grows with time. In missions, you control them one by one in an over the shoulder camera view, in a turn based tactical system.

It feels very similar to RPG’s such as Pathfinder or, wait for it… Mordheim the Tabletop game (mind blowing, we know).

Out of missions, you manage your warband, make deals and shipments with powers in the city, hire or fire warriors, train them, and outfit them for the battles ahead.

We’ve lost people, and those who do hang around, such as my eshin sorcerer Mephi Tailclaw, have all lost something (in her case, a leg).

The game has a definite hump at the beginning, where you have to adapt to the way it plays. The first few missions are by far the hardest, because you’ve yet to learn how best to use all of your units.

Unless you do all nine of the tutorials (I only bothered to do three of them), there will definitely be moments where you feel a bit lost.

But that doesn’t mean this game isn’t fun. It’s punishing, and it can be disheartening when luck isn’t on your side, but it’s a lot of fun once you get into it. You’ll get on a good streak with a warband, get started on the story missions, and find who your veterans are: the soldiers you can rely on.

I had several campaigns I lost very quickly due to poor decisions, but now I’ve stumbled upon the Black Fangs. A Skaven (rat-folk) warband, led by the one and only Vileclaw Floyd, my boy, and his partner in crime, the poison globadier Cain Mankiller.

This warband has gone through many triumphs and disasters alike. We’ve lost people, and those who do hang around, such as my eshin sorcerer Mephi Tailclaw, have all lost something (in her case, a leg).

They’re my warband, and I love them, but that brings me to another interesting point, something that I like about this game, over other similar games such as X-COM.

Injuries are persistent, but death isn’t immediate. When someone is put out of action, you won’t know how well they have recovered until the end of the fight. They might die on the way back to your safe house, but this is rare.

More likely they’ll either make a full recovery, need a few days to recover, or get some form of permanent injury that inflicts a permanent debuff. These can range from a broken jaw to missing limbs; all are marks of honour.

And you will love them. You’ll feel a loyalty to them, and enjoy every foray into the haunted streets of Mordheim with them.